This invention relates to a portable, lifting apparatus and method for raising a person above a bed.
Manual lifting and automatic repositioning mechanisms and methods have been known in the art for quite some time for moving a patient on a bed. For example, in hospitals, severely injured patients commonly require two to four or more nurses to intricately, gently, lift a patient on to a bed pan. Yet, in many cases, when the patient is critically injured, the patient will suffer injuries, internal bleeding, fractures to fragile bones, and a great deal of pain due to the movement of different sections of his body by the nurses. Getting the patient to that radical position without causing extreme discomfort and then moving the patient back to his or her original position after utilizing the bed pan, takes an extreme amount of time and effort for the injured patient to endure and for the hospital staff. A major concern about this manual movement known in the art, is that the time that elapses before the number of required hospital personnel can be assembled from their other pressing duties is often considerable. A second related concern is how long the patient will have to be in discomfort before the task can be done and how long it takes for the staff to come back and reposition the patient in the original position.
Other individuals, in particular the elderly, are also faced with a problem. That is, will they need to hire expensive outside help if they are bed-ridden or impose on their families to assist them? Individuals assisting the elderly who happen to be bed-ridden, must ask themselves can they lift that person by themselves, for bed pan use and bathing and changing linens, etc., and can they continue to do this for an extended length of time without harm to their own physical health?
Of the mechanical devices for moving patients in beds, the Applicant is aware of only those types of beds which raise or lower a persons head or back, or legs, while on the bed itself. None of these prior art mechanical beds, of which Applicant is aware, enable the user or the operator of the bed to raise the patient or bed-ridden person above the bed for use of a bed pan, airing of the patient's body to prevent bed sores, changing linen, or the like. Once again, even in light of the mechanical beds known in the art, it is still necessary, in the case of an injured or bed-ridden person, to assemble a staff of people to raise them physically above the bed so they can use the bed pan, change the linen, etc. Thus, there is a need in the art for providing a portable or fixed, lifting apparatus and method which automatically raises a person above a bed so as to provide access to a bed pan, dressing change, airing of some of the body to prevent bed sores, etc., that does not require a host of important, highly paid and trained individuals to do the lifting. It, therefore, is an object of this invention to provide an absolute lifting apparatus and method to be used in conjunction with existing beds, or integral to specially built beds, for automatically raising and lowering injured and/or bed-ridden individuals above a bed for these purposes.